Working Paper: NBER ID: w18640
Authors: Michael Grossman; Erdal Tekin; Roy Wada
Abstract: We examine the effects of fast-food restaurant advertising on television on the body composition of adolescents as measured by percentage body fat (PBF) and to assess the sensitivity of these effects to using conventional measures of youth obesity based on body-mass index (BMI). We merge measures of body composition from bioelectrical-impedance analysis (BIA) and dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA) from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey with individual level data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 and data on local fast-food restaurant advertising on television from Competitive Media Reporting. Exposure to fast-food restaurant advertising on television causes statistically significant increases in PBF in adolescents. These results are consistent with those obtained by using BMI-based measures of obesity. The responsiveness to fast-food advertising is greater for PBF than for BMI. Males are more responsive to advertising than females regardless of the measure. A complete advertising ban on fast-food restaurants on television would reduce BMI by 2 percent and PBF by 3 percent. The elimination of the tax deductibility of food advertising costs would still leave a considerable number of youth exposed to fast-food advertising on television but would still result in non-trivial reductions in obesity.
Keywords: fastfood advertising; youth obesity; body composition
JEL Codes: I10; I18
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Elimination of tax deductibility of food advertising costs (H29) | Nontrivial reductions in obesity (I14) |
| Males' responsiveness to advertising (M37) | Greater increases in PBF compared to females (J16) |
| Exposure to fastfood restaurant advertising on television (D18) | Increases in adolescents' percentage body fat (PBF) (J13) |
| Exposure to fastfood restaurant advertising on television (D18) | Increases in adolescents' BMI (I12) |
| A complete ban on fastfood advertising (M38) | Reductions in BMI (I14) |
| A complete ban on fastfood advertising (M38) | Reductions in percentage body fat (PBF) (I14) |